Media Advisory: Carnegie Mellon Engineering Students
Showcase New Nanosoccer Skills at RoboCup U.S. Open

Event: Carnegie Mellon University's Chytra Pawashe and Steven Floyd will join students from the U.S. Naval Academy and Canada's University of Waterloo to demonstrate an exciting new technical game, dubbed "Nanosoccer," at the International RoboCup Federation's U.S. Open. Pawashe and Floyd, both mechanical engineering graduate students, will be demonstrating the agility and maneuverability of nanoscale robots on a field the size of a grain of sand. The miniature soccer players are computer-driven robots more than six times smaller than an amoeba. These nanobots also will be demonstrating response to computer control and the ability to move objects — all tools that future miniaturized mechanized workers will need for microsurgery within the human body.

Some of the nanosoccer drills to be featured include the two-millimeter dash in which nanorobots seek fast times for a goal-to-goal sprint and a ball-handling exercise requiring robots to move spheres the diameter of a human hair into a goal. The demonstration is sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.